Category Archives: Story Time

Lunch Trance – 2022-04-27 – Top of the Week

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The cats are still in the process of getting used to one another, a process that we think might easily last months. Monty has gotten a bit more relaxed but still doesn’t like being approached by anybody. Feeding both cats almost next to each other is less of a problem now, only every now and then there’s a bit of hissing but mostly it has been peaceful over the last week.

I also played some music, can you believe it? Tinlicker’s oldest track is still on a yoyo course through the charts, bouncing back up to #17 from last week’s #29 while Tinlicker’s newest track (I think it was played last week?) hasn’t managed to make a reappearance this week. Let’s see what the future holds!

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, May 4th, at 🕖 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.

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Lunch Trance – 2022-04-20 – Top of the Week

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And just like that we’re back to a regular number of new entries, or maybe even a little less… I don’t even know and at this moment I can’t be assed to actually check some statistics… so, I’m simply gonna claim that the 17 new entries we had is totally an average amount. Who’s gonna prove me wrong? You? I didn’t think so. 😀

In cat-related news: the new cat (dubbed “Monty”) has been given a territory in the living room and my study. So far he’s quite shy, he’s hissing if you get too close but he doesn’t seem to be overly frightened. He’s spending quite some time in a plush cave thingy we put up on the window sill, and he has a scratching post/wall-mounted bed combo that he also likes quite a lot, looking down on us, like cats usually do. Most encounters with our old cat were, let’s say, non-negative, and except for one occurrence tonight where both got a little louder they mostly just stare at each other when they’re both near the wire-mesh gate that we use to separate them.

It will stay exciting and I’m looking forward to spending more time with both cats!

The next Top of the Week show will be on next Wednesday, April 27th, at 🕖 19:00 CEST/UTC+2.

→ Download and Playlist

End of the Hiatus

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Huh, I never really talked on this blog about what happened and why I stopped doing shows… I guess I should really do that, and probably should have done that back in February already. Shame on me!

So, what happened? Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances (macOS upgrades, firmware upgrades, more upgrades, other upgrades) the SSD in my DJ MacBook died. The original SSD was way too small to contain all the music I had collected over the decades so restoring from backup wasn’t happening. Getting a replacement SSD for that particular MacBook was out of the question as well because the SSDs in those MacBooks are not standard SSDs. My other MacBook also didn’t have enough storage so it couldn’t be of any help, either. Sheeit.

After restoring basic functionality by putting in the original SSD I was able to put enough music on it to play the show in March. At the time I had already decided that I wanted to get the Denon DJ Prime 4 🤩 but held off on the purchase due to my then-suboptimal financial circumstances, what with being unemployed and all.

The weeks went by, turned to months, I found a new job, and at the end of August I felt financially secure enough to pull the trigger on the Prime 4. It was supposed to be delivered within 2–5 days which turned into 8 weeks at some point and then went down again and up and it was just like a rollercoaster, only I got sadder riding it every day. 😥

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end and so, last week I finally could hold it in my hands and it is huge, it is beautiful, and the outer of the three boxes it came in immediately drew blood🩸. According to my magic 🧙 studies this means it will last forever?

Anyway, I recently checked the software side of the whole situation, i.e. the streaming side, and I only had to reinstall one driver and recreate one configuration, all the rest still seems to be working! Of course, not using Traktor anymore means that I will for now lose the ability to show track titles on the stream automatically but that only means that I will have to enter them manually, like in ancient times. I am working on a solution for that, though: the Denon players expose a lot of information about what the DJ is doing but of course it is using a proprietary protocol named StagelinQ which will require a lot of digging and trial-and-error to figure out. The future might be bright!

In order to get back on track (because I really, really like doing the weekly chart shows) I think I will start slowly, doing maybe one show every weekend. The first shows I will be doing will be Top of the Month shows (starting with February 2021) so you can catch up with all the great tracks released in the last ten months and once we are all caught up (which might be in next February, I guess) I will switch to doing my weekly chart shows again.

Or maybe I’ll do both a show during the week and one on the weekend? I am not sure yet… it may very well be that once I start doing shows again I won’t settle for anything less than ALL THE SHOWS EVERY DAY but I have picked up a couple of other regular appointments during the week which I do not want to give up at this time. 🙂

Anyway. This saturday, November 6, 2021, starting at 11:00 CET/UTC+1 (for old times’ sake) I will be streaming the charts from February 2021, in the same place where it always happened, on my channel on Twitch. I expect you all to be there! 🥳🎉

Lunch Trance – 2020-11-02 – Top of the Week – CANCELED

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Due to unforeseen circumstances involving Windows today’s stream had to be canceled. The video encoder in the GPU could not be persuaded to render more than 2 frames per second which you of course only notice once you actually start the stream. I’m sorry that an announcement went out but there wasn’t any stream.

The Top of the Week show will be broadcast on wednesday, if I can get the machine ready until then.

Die CeBIT überlebt

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Die Viprinet-Standparty auf der CeBIT ist vorüber, der Stand wurde am Freitag rituell verbrannt und beschädigte dabei leider auch Teile von Halle 13. Trotz des Schadens war die Veranstaltung ein voller Erfolg. Der Geschäftsführer von Viprinet, Simon Kissel, erzählte der HAZ, dass „der Dekandenz Genüge getan wurde“, und dass „schier unerschöpfliche Mengen leckeren Fleisches, sowie die massiven Sets der DJs masta und Tanzwart die Partybesucher in Extase […] versetzten“.

Ob die Party nächstes Jahr wieder statt finden kann, wird die CeBIT-Leitung erst in einer Sondersitzung im August 2014 besprechen; so lange soll der Wiederaufbau von Halle 13 dauern.

Frohe Kunde!

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Mit Riesenschritten naht erneut die CeBIT, und selbstverständlich lässt sich Viprinet erneut nicht nehmen, Besucher und geladene Gäste am vorletzten Tag der CeBIT (dieses Mal ein Donnerstag!) nach alle Regeln der Kunst (und Strich und Faden) zu verwöhnen. Mit von der Party ist dieses Jahr Kollege Nico Erfurth, seines Zeichens selbst Viprinet-Mitarbeiter. Ich bin schon sehr gespannt!

Für alle, die den verkorksten und abgebrochenen Versuch eines Sets auf der letztjährigen tUM mitbekommen haben: Fürchtet euch nicht, ein Softwareupdate hat anscheinend sämtliche Probleme behoben, und mein Rechner und das S4 werden euch zu Diensten sein!

Neue Hardware (und neues Headerbild!)

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Ich habe beschlossen, meine Gerätesammlung ein wenig zu erweitern. Und wie der Zufall so wollte, kam mir dabei ein KONTROL S4 über den Weg. Tja, und das steht jetzt hier neben mir (und ist oben im Header zu sehen) und bereitet mir sehr viel Freude! Ich bin auf jeden Fall gespannt, was ich mit den neuen Möglichkeiten, die mir das S4 bietet, so anfangen werde!

Extravanganxa 2012

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Am letzten Samstag fand im Catonium in Hamburg erneut die Extravaganxa statt, und erneut hatte ich die Ehre, auf dieser mit viel Liebe zum Detail geplanten und ausgeführten Party den zweiten Dancefloor zu beschallen. Mein Kollege aus den letzten Jahren konnte dieses Mal leider nicht dabei sein, aber auch im Alleingang hat es sehr viel Spaß gemacht, die Besucher mit den feinsten Klängen aus dem Electrohouse- und Trancebereich zu beschallen. Vielen Dank auf diesem Wege an alle Gäste, alle Mitarbeiter und alle Freude, die diesen Abend zu dem gemacht haben, was er war: Großartig!

CeBIT nach Viprinet-Standparty vorbei

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Aus der HAZ vom 12. März:

Nachdem am 9. März abends Ronny Pries und der Tanzwart die Viprinet-Standparty in Halle 13 gerockt haben, musste die Messe „CeBIT“ am nächsten Tag beendet werden, da viele der Besucher tiefe Augenringe hatten und anwesende Familien mit Kindern zutiefst erschreckten. In den entstehenden Tumulten kam es zu leichten Blessuren, die eine oder andere Nase blutete. Die Messeleitung entschied sich daher, die CeBIT vor den eigentlich geplanten Termin zu beenden, um die Gesundheit der anderen Besucher nicht zu gefähren.

Ja, was soll ich sagen? Wir haben die Viprinet-Standparty derbe gerockt, es wurde mit vollem Körpereinsatz getanzt, ich habe Haare fliegen sehen, und ich wage zu behaupten, dass so ziemlich jeder auf dieser Party Spaß hatte. Ich danke allen Mitarbeitern des Viprinet-Standes, den tanzenden Besuchern, den nicht-tanzenden Besuchern, und vor allem meinem Kollegen Ronny Pries für eine rundum gelungene Party. Auch der Stromausfall durch Bier im Mixer und die polizeiliche Alkoholkontrolle auf dem Rückweg konnten diesen Abend nicht trüben!

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